Real Estate is the last arcane profession. It continues to defy science and rational thought. The nature of the transactions are akin to a complex game of chess, wherein someone keeps changing the rules, and you only get to know about them if you're on the inside. The buyer can only wait with an ear pressed at the closed door, trying to make out what the whispers and giggles all mean.

It makes me feel like a Muggle.

I moved to San Diego last July. Just me and one wee dog, leaving Brakk and the other three pooches in Orlando. It has been over six months now, and we are still trying to sort out the path to obtaining a second home here.

Why not sell the first one? Hah. We still owe more on the mortgage than the house is worth, in our collapsed market. Instead, we are going to try to rent it out to help cover part of the mortgage, and obtain another house in California.

Why not rent? Because that costs about as much as paying a mortgage, and does not allow us to paint our walls lime green if we really want to. We might, you never know!

We bought our Orlando house in 2007. Back then, the mortgage brokers were parked on every street corner and leaping out of our mailbox almost daily with insane offers. They were dancing in the streets in their underwear, popping champagne bottles and running to the bank with truckloads of money. The very first company we contacted offered us pre-approval on a mortgage within hours, for more than twice what we intended to borrow. We even borrowed our 20% downpayment. We offered, closed and took possession of our lovely home within 30 days, without paying a cent up front. Go figure.

Then the freak show collapsed and reality grabbed a lot of unprepared people by the throats and dragged them into foreclosure. I was very glad that we took care to purchase a place at our originally budgeted price, that we knew we could afford, so we escaped that nightmare, as others fell to the adjustable rate mortgages and general economic downturn.

Fast forward to 2009. The mortgage brokers that survived the real estate collapse changed from gibbering circus clowns into funeral directors. The difference in the pre-approval process was dramatic.

This time around, we have had to submit a metric ton of information, and have to come up with our own downpayment funds while we wait. And wait. And wait. The good thing is that the waiting comes with time to add to our downpayment account, pay down debt and fix up our old place for prospective renters. It still drives me crazy though.

The prices for homes have certainly fallen from their previously inflated heights, which is bad for selling our old place, but good for buying a new one. However, there is very little negotiation going on these days. Lowball offers are largely ignored, not receiving so much as a counter. Short sale properties sing a siren song with their pretty prices, but their brokers play a nasty shell game behind the curtains, wherein they will delay indefinitely and gather several offers while it's anyone's guess who will get it. Months can pass before a decision is made. Prospective buyers are often surprised to learn that a significantly lower bid won the property they coveted - often an all-cash offer from a real estate speculator.

There isn't much "funny" to be had in this column, save that the descriptions of properties can often be amusing.
"Quaint" means that it hasn't been updated since 1949.
"Room for your RVs and toys" means someone put in a huge, ugly cement pad in the yard.
"Ready for your dream garden" means that the scraggly, brown remnants of an ancient lawn are what you'll get.
"Garage converted into Granny flat, undocumented" means code violations that you'll have to deal with.
"Too good to be true!" means it's sitting right on a fault line.

I've read so much about real estate in the past six months that I am almost ready to take the Real Estate Exam. In fact, I've given licensing some serious consideration because it is certainly a fascinating field of endeavor. My day job keeps me pretty darn busy though...

;-)#
Brasse

ps. Yes, I obsessively search property listings in my spare time in anticipation of our loan approval. Don't you judge me!